Video equipment, such as video cassette recorder/players ("VCR") and camcorders, have become so popular as to be nearly ubiquitous. The vast number of consumers owning and operating such equipment has naturally increased the need for servicing and repairing such equipment, thus putting inordinate demands on qualified service technicians. Accordingly, a technician's time in diagnosing and correcting reported problems with video equipment is extremely valuable.
Among the more common video equipment problems reported by consumers, and resulting in the return of such equipment to the manufacturer, is video signal dropout. Video signal dropout is a usually momentary loss or interruption in the video signal emanating from the equipment, and may manifest itself on a video monitor as glitches or instantaneous blackout of the transmitted image.
Since video signal dropout is usually intermittent, technicians are frequently unable to detect and correct the problem. Furthermore, from a practical standpoint, the technician is simply unable to devote the time necessary to manually test each unit. Manual testing requires the technician to watch a video monitor for an extended period of time in hopes of seeing evidence of signal dropout, a procedure that the demands of production schedules clearly prohibit.
It can be seen from the foregoing that the need exists for a video dropout detector that will reliably identify the occurrence and frequency of occurrence of video signal dropout without requiring the constant presence or attention of a technician.